Rifleman Parker: A Soldier of the Reconquista
by Stutley Constable
Summary: Operation Reconquista has begun. First story of the events surrounding Rifleman Parker a private in the 4th KY Volunteers. Rated for language and mild violence and there are zombies . Later there will be more zombies.
1. Chapter 1

**Legal Note:** I do not own any of the characters associated with Dawn of the Dead, Night of the Living Dead or any other zombie related movie, book, TV show or any other media format. I do not have any legal right to use them. This story was done just for the fun of it. Not for profit. If you like it please tell me. If you don't like it please tell me why with particulars but not excessive detail. Any one who wants to rip on my style or me just to make them self feel better is really only polishing their wand and their statements will receive the due amount of interest (i.e. NONE). And finally before any one brings it up: I do know my punctuation stinks. I just don't care.

**Summary:** The introduction to a post Z-Day soldier and the events surrounding him. The story will be updated periodically. Chapters will be records of events normally in chronological order.

**Humanitarian Note:** No zombies were injured during the writing of this story.

**Rifleman Parker: A Soldier of the Reconquista**

"Rifleman Parker, are you ready?"

"No, sergeant."

"NO?" Sergeant Cobb turned on his side to look at the rifleman. "You got something wrong with your weapon?"

"No, sergeant." Parker was leaning into his sight a bit but his finger was not on his trigger. The stock of the old FN FAL was snugged up but his posture was wrong to take a shot.

"What the fuck is it then? The others are set to go."

"One of the targets in my section is acting funny." Parker was still straining through his scope to see whatever it was he was looking at.

"Which target?" The scorn was gone from Sgt. Cobb's voice now. He turned back to his own weapon and panned his scope over to Parker's section of the field. They were on a low hill overlooking a sapling covered slope. Moving through the brush and tall grass were thirty-eight infected. The infected were spread out making their way up the slope towards the territory that the Fourth Kentucky Volunteers had just spent the last two months clearing. The infected were not welcome and Sgt Cobbs' squad was here to let them know it.

"It's the female there on the far left in the blue striped shirt." Parker said.

"She looks fresh. What's special about... Never mind. I saw it." The woman had tripped and looked down instinctively. The zombies hadn't taken notice. It was also clear from her path in the grass that she was gradually moving farther and farther away from the others.

"Figure she's one of us?"

"I'd say so, Parker."

"She's down wind of them." Parker was judging distances and doing some math in his head. "At the rate she's moving they'll be on top of us before she's clear."

"Yep. If she makes it that long. The wind is bound to shift sooner or later."

"Why doesn't she just run now?" Parker adjusted his weapon and settled a little more to steady his aim.

"The terrain is bad here. She might make it but she could trip, get tangled up or even twist an ankle. Parker, we have to fire. You take out the ones that are in her path first. Then get those that are closest to her. If she's got any sense she'll bolt right for us." Cobb turned to his right. "Grayson, pass the word. Don't shoot the blonde in the striped shirt. Got that? Good. Pass it on."

A moment later Cobb fired the first shot. An instant later Parker dropped the big fella directly in the woman's path and then two more behind it. She had snapped her head up the instant Cobb had fired and when Parker started picking off her neighbors she gave a quick glance over her shoulder and sprinted up hill waving her arms but not saying anything.

"Smart girl." Cobb muttered. The infected always zeroed in on sound. They couldn't see worth shit but their hearing seemed acute and their sense of smell was insane. The infected were moaning now. They were shuffling faster but the slope was tough for them to negotiate. Five riflemen and the sergeant laid waist to the group in under a minute. Riflemen were not snipers. They were trained to be superior shots and trained to operate in squads, platoons and companies. Snipers were trained to an almost inhuman accuracy. They were trained in two man teams for independent infiltration operations. That sort of thing had very limited use in a fight with the infected.

"Don't shoot! Please! I'm alive!" The woman was almost sobbing as she ran waving her arms. She lurched up the hill and just short of Parker's position she fell to her knees crying and gasping. "I'm alive."

"It's all right now, ma'am." Parker rose up from the grass. He stayed in a crouch as he moved down to her. "We got 'em."

The woman looked up at him. She saw a dark complected youngish man. He wore a camouflaged slouched hat and a camouflaged poncho. In his hand was a big gun and most reassuring of all he was smiling.

"I'm alive." The words slipped from her mouth as if she could not quite believe it.

"Yes, ma'am." Parker reached her and took her by the arm. "I'm alive too."

She smiled at that and the tears started from her eyes again. "I didn't know what else to do."

"You did great, ma'am." Parker said pulling her to her feet. He continued to scan the slope but there was nothing moving. "What's your name, ma'am?"

"Shauna." She gulped air trying to get control of herself. "I'm Shauna Bailey."

"Nice to meet you, Miss Bailey. I'm Jim Parker."

"Are you with the army?"

"Sort of. We're the Fourth Kentucky Volunteer Regiment operating out of Ft. Knox. Are you all right? Hurt anywhere?"

"I'm not bit!" She said it quick, scared eyes going wide.

"I didn't figure you were, Miss Bailey." Parker said reassuringly but he had been wondering. These days you didn't meet anyone outside of a community without making sure they had not been infected.

"Missis. Mrs. Bailey." Her eyes went out of focus and her voice softened to a whisper."The Widow Bailey. Widows and orphans."

"Mrs. Bailey we need you to hold it together until we can get you back to our camp." Parker had seen more than a few people make it out of bad situations only to lose it when the shooting stopped. "Do you think you can walk?"

She turned a sudden and very engaging smile on him. "I'll bloody well walk out a' here." Parker thought she was doing some accent or other but wasn't sure.

"Rifleman Parker," Sgt. Cobb called. "Let's get moving. We'll debrief the lady on the way back."

The squad moved out at an energy conserving walk. They were following the same path that they had used on the way out because they had already cleared it of crawlers which were infected that had lost the use of their legs and there were no close spots that the infected could trap them in. The sun was high and the wind low but still cool. Early May was a comfortable if rainy month in Kentucky. Today was a good day for a walk in the country with a pretty lady. It was a good day to be alive.

* * *


	2. Chapter 2

"Keep shooting!" Sgt. Cobb yelled over the din of rifle fire.

"Awe shit!" Pvt. Tarry growled.

"What?" Cobb continued to fire steadily into the advancing mass of of infected. With every round expended another body dropped.

"They did get Randy."

"Damn. It figures." Cobb had liked Pvt. Randy Hicks. The boy had been sixteen at the time of the outbreak and two years later he'd joined the 4th Kentucky. Steady under almost any circumstances Hicks had wanted nothing more than to protect his mother and see that his sisters had a safe world to grow up in. Now he was walking among the infected with his cheek torn away and blood running from a bite in his upper arm.

The patrol had been boxed in. They had been ordered to make a sweep on the edge of Radcliff and were in visual contact with a group of a dozen infected when the rear guard alerted Cobb to another group coming from behind. More bad luck when they turned down into the trailer park and another pack had appeared from a wood line almost on top of them. Pvt. Hicks had begun firing and run away from the patrol drawing the infected after him. That was just the kind of guy he was. No longer. He was one of them now. The patrol had made a dash for a trailer and having kicked the steps away from the front door to make it more difficult for the infected to get in they'd checked the rooms and taken up firing posts to await the mob that was sure to be attracted. Now they were laying down fire steadily and taking their toll on the undead.

"Take your time with each shot!" Cobb roared as some of the men began missing their targets. "We've only got so many rounds and they aren't going to send out a chopper for the five of us. Not in this mess."

"Should I shoot Randy?" Pvt. Tarry asked.

"No!" Parker snapped.

"He's a goner, Parker." Cobb said as gently as the noise of gun fire would allow.

"I know." Parker fired another round. "But he's still got ammo on him. Let him get right up next to us and then pop him."

"Fuck that!" Tarry barked.

"I'll go out and get his web gear off him. you guys can cover me for that long." Parker volunteered.

"Everyone hear that?" there were calls of accent all around. The riflemen continued their fusillade cutting down the oncoming infected in droves. The team members knew though that for eery shot they fired there were at least a dozen infected yet to come. Finally Randy had gotten within a few yards of the trailer and there were no others close to him. Parker took careful aim and shot. Randy dropped on his side and lay motionless. It had been a clean kill.

"I'm ready." Parker yelled out.

"Okay. Everyone concentrate your fire to clear the space around Parker while he's out there." Cobb yelled loud enough for everyone to hear.

Parker set aside his rifle and dumped his web gear. From the holster on his hip he drew out his 1911. The big frame automatic had been designed for the U.S. army nearly a hundred years ago with one stipulation being that the round had to be able to stop a charging horse. Parker didn't know if that were true but he knew that the ball ammo could knock a man down with a single round. As he moved to the door he jacked the slide back to chamber a round and then taking a couple uneasy deep breaths he tore the door open and leaped to the ground. Bullets whizzed by him as he took the three long stride needed to get to Randy. With his pistol pointed at the fallen man's head he knelt next to him.

"You were a good guy, Randy." Was all Parker had time for as he ripped the web gear off the corpse. He looked up and found one of the infected about eight feet from him and he put a bullet through the thing's brain. Without a backward glance Parker turned and sprinted for the door which still stood open. He hurled himself up into the frame and turned to fire two more rounds into the advancing tide of the dead. An arm swept around his waist and dragged him inside the old trailer. Cobb slammed the door and gave Parker a scowl.

"Brave thing you did but don't leave the god damn door open for them!" Cobb returned to his window and again began firing. Outside the bodies were stacking up in a semicircle. The infected were having a tougher time getting across the yard and in some places the bodies were blocking them from advancing at all.

Parker was back at his window now with his weapon up. He watched the dead carefully as they continued to try to climb the bodies. As one would scramble on top of the pile and just start to cross it Parker would fire. The pile, already four deep, was growing steadily.

"Hughes." Sgt. Cobb yelled. "Look out the back window and tell me what you see."

Hughes was an old hunter. He'd fought in the first Gulf war and had a shady area before that that he wouldn't talk much about. His best trait aside from being hell with a rifle was that he could see routes into and out of anywhere. He moved to the small back door with its porthole window and peered out. There was an overgrown field of weeds but he could see no sign that anything had moved through it. The infected never sneaked up on anyone. They just didn't have enough mental power to come up with anything like that. Walk, eat and moan was all most of them ever did. Across the field was a narrow strip of woods and beyond that was what looked like a road or a parking lot. If the team could make it there they could out run the infected and call in a chopper to pull them clear of the mass before the dead could overwhelm them. He went and told Cobb as they both fired through the window.

"No fences or anything?" Cobb asked.

"None that I can see from the back door." Hughes assured him. "Might be a guard rail by the pavement though. I didn't see anything."

"All right. Take watts' firing position and tell him to hit the chicken switch and send our GPS. Tell them where we're heading and that we'll move as soon as we hear the rotors."

Ten minutes later they heard the whump-whump-whump of the Blackhawk as it came to pull them out.

"Hughes, you're point. Parker, you and me will hold the rear." Cobb ordered. "The rest of you in single file follow Hughes. Stay in his tracks and keep your eyes open."

Parker looked out the window as he continued to fire. The bodies were stacked up and spread across the overgrown lawn. There must have been at least three hundred dead and and maybe another hundred still moving. They could take their time now. The infected were falling over those that had already fallen and then floundering around until they either got back on their feet or they got a bullet in the head. Parker put a round through a little one that couldn't have been more than eight years old when he'd been bitten. Those were the ones that sometimes bothered him. This one though was just another target in the heat of the moment. Cobb was firing steadily and looking over his shoulder out the back window to see how far the rest of the team had gotten. Above them they could hear the Blackhawk in a slow turn.

"Let's move, Parker!" Cobb slapped Parker on the shoulder as they both turned to the door. They jumped out the narrow door each turning in opposite directions to cover the ends of the trailer. With rapid steps they followed the path that the other team members had taken and soon had fetched up next to the blacktop. It was an old parking lot with a store to one side. The Blackhawk circled in but they could see the infected coming. The team spread into a thin skirmish line and once more began to lay down fire. Dust swirled up as the helicopter swooped in to touch lightly down some fifty feet behind them. With a hand signal Sgt. Cobb ordered the men to the helicopter. They would go home. Tonight they would drink a toast to the man that had sacrificed himself for them. They were still alive and one day they would be able to walk the streets of the city without fear. Tonight, though, they would have nightmares.

* * *


End file.
